Department of Health and Social Care

Department of Health and Social Care: Staff

Darren Jones: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many officials in their Department were dedicated to their Department's responsibilities associated with the delivery of the Industrial Strategy in (a) 2017, (b) 2018, (c) 2019, (d) 2020 and (e) 2021.

Edward Argar: The Industrial Strategy is a cross-government policy which comprises and drives a significant number of initiatives. These span a wide array of policy areas across 20 Government departments and arm’s length bodies.This information is not held centrally as work on the strategy is embedded in a number of roles across the Department.

Coronavirus: Vaccination

Sarah Owen: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to engage with BAME communities to tackle vaccine hesitancy.

Nadhim Zahawi: The Department is working with Public Health England, NHS England and NHS Improvement and key stakeholders to encourage take-up of the COVID-19 vaccine among black, Asian and minority ethnic communities and ensure that everyone, including those with questions about the vaccination process, has access to accurate advice and information. The Department is also working with community press and radio stations to deliver information on vaccination in over a dozen languages.Our activity is also focusing on recruiting trusted voices, faith leaders, and community organisations for priority multicultural audiences, with a particular focus on Muslim, Polish, black African and Caribbean and Jewish communities. The Department is building on pre-existing relationships and established channels, as well as reaching out to more influencers through virtual sessions. Externally, the Department is also working with the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport to help social media platforms identify/ take action on incorrect claims on the virus, including anti-vaccination narratives that could endanger people’s health.

Coronavirus: Vaccination

Jim McMahon: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, which private companies are involved with the logistics and transportation of covid-19 vaccines; and what role each such company has in that process.

Nadhim Zahawi: Public Health England (PHE) is responsible for the central storage and distribution of ultra-low temperature COVID-19 vaccines, from receipt of the vaccines in the United Kingdom through to distribution to initial National Health Service locations in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. PHE uses an existing contract with a specialist medical logistics company to undertake COVID-19 vaccines logistics and transportation operations, in addition to operates for the national immunisation programme. We are unable to provide the name of the contractor for security reasons.Additional distribution companies have been commissioned by NHS England for onward distribution to primary care. Information on private companies involved in the logistics and transportation of the COVID-19 vaccine by NHS England will be published shortly on the Contracts Finder Service which is available at the following link:https://www.gov.uk/contracts-finder

Coronavirus: Vaccination

Dr Matthew Offord: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what plans his Department has to monitor the effectiveness of different covid-19 vaccines in different age groups.

Justin Madders: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what plans his Department has to monitor the effectiveness of different covid-19 vaccines on different age groups.

Lee Anderson: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what plans his Department has to monitor the effectiveness of different covid-19 vaccines on different age groups.

Alexander Stafford: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what plans his Department has to monitor the effectiveness of different covid-19 vaccines on different age groups.

Nadhim Zahawi: Public Health England is leading on the surveillance of the COVID-19 vaccine programme and has developed a surveillance strategy to monitor the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines against mortality, hospitalisations, confirmed infections, markers of infectiousness and the impact on transmission. Whilst phase three clinical trials provided evidence of vaccine effectiveness against symptomatic disease, further evidence is needed on how effectiveness varies by subgroup, including by age. This will be done using advanced surveillance techniques once the earliest eligible cohorts have been offered a full course of vaccination.

Carers: Coronavirus

Anne Marie Morris: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of providing covid-19 testing and personal protective equipment to family carers on a similar basis to the provision of that equipment to care home staff.

Helen Whately: In response to clinical advice and following a successful pilot, free personal protective equipment (PPE) for COVID-19 needs is now being provided to unpaid carers who do not live with the person they care for. In line with the Government’s commitment to provide free PPE for COVID-19 needs to the adult social care sector, this offer for unpaid carers is currently available until the end of June 2021 and can be accessed through local authorities and local resilience forums. As of May 2020, the Government included unpaid carers in its list of essential workers and those prioritised for COVID-19 testing in England. If they have symptoms of COVID-19, unpaid carers can book a test directly online and access testing themselves or for members of their household who are experiencing symptoms.

Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office

Palestinians: Recognition of States

Dr Matthew Offord: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, with reference to the Palestinian Authority joining the Rome Statute in 2015, whether the Government recognises Palestine as a sovereign state.

James Cleverly: The UK will recognise a Palestinian state at a time of our choosing, and when it best serves the objective of peace.

Palestinians: Remote Education

Scott Benton: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what mechanisms are in place to monitor self-learning educational materials distributed by the UN Relief and Works Agency to Palestinian children in the West Bank and Gaza.

James Cleverly: The FCDO monitors UNRWA's self-learning material via different tools including programme monitoring and annual assessments to assess UNRWA's implementation of the curriculum framework.  This ensures lessons taught with UNRWA self-learning materials are in line with UN values.

Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government

Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government: Wolverhampton

Stuart Anderson: To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what progress has been made on plans to relocate civil servants from his Department to Wolverhampton.

Christopher Pincher: As we build back better, we are going to revitalise town and city centres and make them great places to live and work, driving investment and new jobs. Wolverhampton is a wonderful city with a proud history and bright future. MHCLG is committed to moving civil service roles out of London and more details of our plans will be announced shortly.

Department for Work and Pensions

Coronavirus: Prohibition Notices

Ian Lavery: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many prohibition notices for each sector have been served by the Health and Safety Executive to employers for breaching covid-19 safety.

Mims Davies: The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) takes Covid-19 safety at work very seriously and it is playing a critical role in the national response to the pandemic. The Government has provided additional funding of £14 million to HSE to strengthen its capacity to tackle Covid-19. Since the start of the pandemic HSE has carried out over 110,000 Coivd-19 spot checks and responded to over 18,000 concerns. Over 700 checks a day are currently taking place. Spot checks have been targeted in those industries where workers are most likely to be vulnerable to transmission risks. HSE’s evidence is that more than 90% of the businesses checked have the right precautions in place or are willing to make necessary changes promptly and without the need for enforcement notices. HSE will continue to take enforcement action where appropriate, but the best use of its time and resource to ensure employers take the right action promptly is often to educate, persuade or require matters to be put right immediately. HSE has to date issued two prohibition notices for breaches of workplace COVID-secure standards, both in the oil and gas industry (part of the extractive utilities sector). A further 212 COVID-19 related interventions have resulted in improvement notices, 1,422 in written correspondence and 6429 in verbal advice. The tables below provide the breakdowns by industry sector. To note, sector comparisons cannot be made as the figures are not like for like in each sector due to our targeting approach.  Table 1: COVID-19 related interventions resulting in an outcome of improvement notice Industry sectorNumber of COVID-19 related interventions resulting in an outcome of an improvement noticeAgriculture0Construction107Extractive Utilities2Manufacturing38Services53Water / Waste Management7(Sector not specified)5Total212  Table 2: COVID-19 related interventions resulting in an outcome of written correspondence Industry sectorNumber of COVID-19 related cases resulting in an outcome of written correspondenceAgriculture8Construction457Extractive Utilities24Manufacturing474Services367Water / Waste Management65(Sector not specified)27Total1,422  Table 3: COVID-19 related interventions resulting in an outcome of verbal advice Industry sectorNumber of COVID-19 related cases resulting in an outcome of verbal adviceAgriculture69Construction1,165Extractive Utilities107Manufacturing2,724Services2,030Water / Waste Management299(Sector not specified)35Total6,429 Note: This data was extracted from HSE’s live operational database on 9th February 2021 and is subject to change e.g. as there can be a delay of up to 10 working days before actions are updated on the database.

Home Office

Offences against Children: Convictions

Dr Matthew Offord: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the implications for her policies of the increase in the number of convictions for sexual offences against minors in the last five years.

Victoria Atkins: The total number of convictions for contact child sexual abuse offences and indecent images of children offences have fallen from a high of around 7,300 in 2016 to 5,200 in 2019, despite increases in recorded crime. We have a better understanding of child sexual abuse than ever before and, as a result, we have seen steep increases in reporting of child sexual abuse to the police. We want reporting of child sexual abuse to keep rising to continue to bring this heinous crime out of the shadows.We know that child sexual abuse is evolving and that perpetrators are increasing utilising technology and the internet to offend. The NCA report that, in the year ending March 2020, arrests relating to online child sexual abuse increased by 50% compared to the previous year, reaching 7,212 arrests, and 8,329 children safeguarded.In January 2021, we published the Tackling Child Sexual Abuse Strategy. The Strategy sets out our long-term ambition alongside the immediate steps we will take to drive collective action across government, frontline responders and society as a whole to tackle all forms of child sexual abuse and bring offenders to justice, whether it takes place online or in families, institutions or communities, here in this country or overseas.

Department for International Trade

Trade Agreements: Maldives

Sir David Amess: To ask the Secretary of State for International Trade, what steps her Department is taking to establish equivalent trading agreements between Maldives and the UK as exist with similar Commonwealth countries.

Mr Ranil Jayawardena: British agreements with similar Commonwealth countries were ‘rolled over’ from previous European Union (EU) agreements. My Hon. Friend will know that the Maldives did not have a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the EU.HM Government has not been able to negotiate trade deals with our friends around the world for almost fifty years. Now that we have control of our independent trade policy, the Department for International Trade is actively pursuing agreements with our trading partners, under an ambitious programme of work – including with the United States, Australia and New Zealand – as well as seeking accession to the Trans-Pacific Partnership.The United Kingdom and the Maldives already have a strong bilateral relationship. Trade in goods and services was worth £201m in 2020. In that context, we are working with the Maldivian Government to explore ways to increase trade and investment across a range of sectors of mutual interest, including food and drink, defence, education, fitness and health, and in environmental science and sustainable development.